The cutbacks to Ofcom's duties, including a formal end to automatic reviews of public service television every five years, bring to an end an era of hyperactivity. Stephen Carter, the regulator's first chief executive, made it a body that probed deep into the recesses of broadcasters' activities – including the BBC's – bringing uncomfortable truths to the surface.

Yet for all this work, few of its recommendations have been implemented. The first of its reviews, in 2005, predicted that commercially funded public service broadcasting, from regional programmes to children's, would not survive the transition to a fully digital world. So it proposed a new form of subsidy – the public service provider (PSP).

The idea, never fleshed out, was ignored by ministers, and the BBC was given a renewed charter and licence – without an element of shared contestable funding that might have flowed into a PSP's coffers. The second review in 2009 backed independently funded news consortiums, but these were rejected by the coalition; and the task of assessing local TV's chances was passed to an external group of experts.

In between, Ofcom carried out a thorough review of children's TV, concluding there was a £30m funding gap since ITV had pulled out, and shamed the BBC into reinstating funds it had removed from CBBC. After a detailed survey of Channel 4's finances, which confirmed a small funding gap, it eyed up subsidies from the BBC. In the event, C4 wisely decided on self-help, the Treasury kiboshed tax breaks for children's production, and ITV hacked £40m from its regional news budget, without anyone to restrain it.

In future, culture secretaries will set the timing and scope of reviews they order. Ofcom will, however, still publish its factual annual review of PSB – showing who is providing what.

It is now putting the finishing touches to the last of its annual reviews of ITV's networking arrangements, examining the dispute between ITV and STV that has led STV to refuse to screen expensive network dramas across Scotland.

All this suggests a winding down of its policy and strategy side, as the unglamorous bread and butter work of regulation dominates. Carter's Ofcom RIP?